Title: "My December"
Chapter: 11?
Pairings: Ban/Kazuki. Later pairings, possibly.
Disclaimer: GetBackers and all associated characters are, unfortunately, not mine. Sue if you want, but I have no money anyway.
Warnings: PG-13-ish, just to be safe. Consider this fic spoiler-filled, just in case.
Notes: Woo. About time I got up a new chapter, huh? I suck, I know. Might edit to include lyrics for this chapter later, I'm too lazy to look them up now. Enjoy. No interaction for Ban and Kazuki this time, but you finally get to find out what happened with Ban and Shido!
'The right shoulder,' Ban thought sourly. 'It's always the right fucking shoulder.'
He pressed the bloodied towel to his wound harder, willing himself to not fall into the unconsciousness that often accompanied so much blood loss. Not to mention his head hurt, but hey, the stupid target was sitting beside him in the 360, wagging its tail and looking happy to leave its nose-pints all over the passenger's side window. Ban just growled.
It was another few hours before he had the damned dog returned were it needed to be, and another hour before he even thought about heading to Threadspool's place. By then he was tired and irritable and still bleeding (all over his seats no less. Yet another car-cleaning bill.) and being seen like this was a wound to his ego.
Still, he knew he needed to see a doctor, but for now sleep felt more important and he had a first-aid kit on hand to bandage up the gouge in his right shoulder enough that he could relax. And so, with the 360 outside of a park, Ban dropped his seat back and fell straight to sleep.
Kazuki woke with a crick in his neck and an ache all the way down his spine into his hips and injured leg. When he straightened up, his shoulders were a little stiff and his cheek was numb where it'd been resting on his forearms. The sight of the empty spot at the table across from him and all the uneaten dinner food brought the previous night back to the forefront of his brain quickly, and he had to fight down the melting pot of confusion, worry and irritation by looking away.
Ban had never shown up, never called. Kazuki cooked, sat, waited. When he got hungry, he ate his own food and waited some more. Reheated Ban's plate once, sat again, waited more, but refused to permit himself to be so pitiful as to call the other man's phone. Eventually he'd laid his head on his arms to close his eyes and rest for a moment, and the next thing he knew... he was waking up there, only an hour before dawn...
And still no Midou Ban.
During the next hour before the sun came up completely, Kazuki put away the leftover food, checked over his wounds, which looked much better, and made a few phone calls. The last of which was to Ban's cell, once worry got the best of him. It went straight to voicemail, and he hung up before leaving a message.
He could no longer recall any of the things from the night before of why he liked Ban, the things that'd led him to start discovering that Ban wasn't just a loud, vulgar, dangerous, self-centered bastard. With as much as he'd been stressing over the types of thoughts and feelings he'd been having of and about Ban, one would have thought getting them out of his head even for a little while would have made him feel better; normal again.
It didn't.
A shower made him feel better. When he came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped tight around his body (Ban would have remarked that he wore his towel like a woman did, up high around his chest) he stepped across the hallway towards his bedroom door.
A brief flash of movement and noise alerted his senses to someone out in the living room and he froze for a moment, before pressing up against the wall and inching his way along it towards the corner. Whatever it was hadn't moved again, or at least, Kazuki couldn't hear it. And damn it all, his threads were on the kitchen table.
Thankfully his footsteps were silent on the carpet, so even if Kazuki couldn't hear the intruder, hopefully the intruder couldn't hear him, either. Hadn't he locked his door-! Irrelevant now, wasn't it. Well, now or never.
He swung around the corner and barely had a chance to take two steps towards the looming figure near his couch when - "If you hit me, don't think I won't hit you back."
All the steam went right out of him, and suddenly Kazuki just felt quite silly standing there, dripping wet and clutching a towel around himself. "...Shido. What're you doing here?" Uhoh, he hadn't forgotten about another job, had he?
The large man turned a little where he was perched on the arm of the couch, thumbing through one of Kazuki's books. He shrugged a little. "Can't I make a social call to my friends?"
"First of all, that has to be the first time you've ever used 'my friends' in a sentence that didn't have to do with animals. Second, you never make social calls." Kazuki adjusted the towel a little. "Is everything alright?"
Shido's grey eyes were fixed on him, frowning, and he didn't seem sure what to say.
"Was Midou here yesterday?"
"...Not that it's any of your business, but yes, he was." It was Kazuki's turn to frown. "Why?"
"I think we need to talk, Kaz..." he said slowly as his eyes started to wander a bit lower. Seeing his companion nearly naked didn't bother him in the least - it wasn't like he'd not seen the guy nude before back in the Volts. Normally, in fact, he'd not have even looked twice at anything other than Kazuki's face, but the discoloration on the thread-user's leg drew his eyes downward.
"Oi, what happened to you?"
Kazuki scoffed and turned to make towards his bedroom again. "Again, none of your business. If this isn't important, at least let me get some clothes on fir--" He was cut off as Shido snagged hold of his arm and yanked him back like some sort of rag doll, and before h really knew what was going on, the beast master yanked up part of his towel to get a better look at his thigh and hip. Kazuki yelped and tried to hold the towel down at least a little to permit himself some small sliver of modesty. Shido didn't seem to care.
"Jeez, Kazuki... This came from a job, right?"
"It did." Kazuki squirmed a little, grudgingly permitting other man to look him over with sulkish patience. "I'm not prone to bruising myself up with hammers and jumping down flights of stairs. Bad habit to get into, that."
"Shut up." Shido released him, still scowling. "Nothing serious though? You're okay?"
...Well, that got a small smile out of Kazuki. "It's quite cute to see you so concerned, but really, I'm fine." This time when he drew away and made for the bedroom, Shido merely got up and followed. He even shut the bedroom door behind them, out of habit, really, and took a seat on the edge of the bed while Kazuki rummaged through his closet for something to wear.
"So..." Shido seemed hesitant. "What did you and snake-bastard do yesterday?"
The thread user spared a glance over his shoulder. "You're awfully curious today. If you must know, we had breakfast, went to an art gallery, to the park and grocery shopping. Would you like to know more specifics?"
"I'm not trying to be nosey," Shido grumbled irritably. "I just wanted to know..."
"I gathered, but why? I know you dislike Ban-kun but..."
"Since when did it change from 'Midou-kun' anyway?"
"...But you never pry about where Ginji-san goes with him. What's going on?"
The larger man seemed to almost squirm beneath Kazuki's intent stare, and he felt like a child that knew it was about to get into trouble if he didn't talk. He'd be in trouble even when he did, too, but... Well, now or never.
Who knew how it had started. One of them got irritated, snarked at the other, Ginji was out of the room so it was safe for the other to snark back. A few lazy insults back and forth and soon they were yelling and close to decking one another. Ban had a bad habit of getting right up into peoples' faces and, naturally, it made Shido uneasy and he kept trying to rear back to keep distance between them.
"...Then go take a bath, you stupid monkey-tamer! You smell of kept-man!" Ban was yelling at him.
"You're just jealous," Shido was snarling back, "because you can't get a girl for the life of you, and even if you did it's not like you could afford to provide for her! You can't even make sure Ginji doesn't go hungry!"
The comment struck a nerve close to home with Ban; he was sensitive about the fact that he'd never really been abele to take care of Ginji as well as he would have liked. But like hell he was going to show that raw spot to Shido of all people.
"At least I'm not stuck playing man-servant to a blind girl, because she's the only one who'll have me! Damned good she can't see you or you might start crying when she runs away screaming, and nothin' more pathetic than seeing a grown monkey cry."
Shido bristled. "Leave Madoka out of this! And you sure as hell couldn't ever get me if your life depended on it!"
"Like I'd want you. I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole, much less let you come near me with that murder-weapon between your legs!"
He'd opened himself right up for that one. "What, jealous, Midou, because your mouth is the only thing on you that's big?"
...And vice-versa. "Please, monkey-tamer. In this case, there's big," he pointed to his mouth, then to Shido's crotch, "and then there's just plain ridiculous. Again, Madoka would run away screaming if she could see. I bet everyone else has."
"Better run away screaming than run away laughing like they'd do with you!" He was screaming now, it was a miracle Ginji hadn't come running.
"Women worship the ground the invincible Midou Ban-sama walks on, sarumashi. Don't you forget that! I can have anyone I want at my feet!" It wasn't true and he knew it, but what kind of ego would he have if he didn't say such things? "Hevn, that Kakei girl, pretty-boy Threadspool, hell I could get Madoka if I were so inclined!"
At that, Shido burst out laughing. "I'd love to see you try with any of them! Hevn would slug you, Madoka would slap you, Sakura'd leave you hanging from the ceiling by her shawl for a week, and Kazuki... Tch', you'd have your eyes, mouth and ears sewn shut, and god knows what else."
Ban's lips quirked up in a snarl. "You really think so, huh? Wanna see me try? Easy targets. All of 'em."
"Go ahead, I dare you; it'll be your funeral. I'll make sure to send flowers to be put on your grave." The beast master looked genuinely amused now, finding it hard not to laugh.
Ban's dark eyes narrowed. Suddenly he was even more furious than before, but slugging Shido would have made for a very unhappy Ginji... and that just would not do. He snatched his flimsy jacket from the back of couch and stalked off, clutching his keys hard enough to make his hand hurt.
"Oi-! Where are you going!" Shido started after him. Ban wouldn't just leave Ginji there, would he?
"Away from you, fucking ape." He stopped at the door, turned a little, and smirked darkly. "I'll give Threadspool your regards when I have him writhing around under me later." He sneered, opened the front door and stalked out, leaving a stunned, panicked Shido behind.
Kazuki continued getting dressed while Shido recalled the argument with Ban from awhile back, his movements mechanical and slow as the information absorbed into his brain. It'd been an amusing story at first, until he'd been brought into it… But still, why would Shido take something like that so seriously? He finished pulling on his shirt and buttoning up his pants.
When he turned around, Shido was studying him, the faintest hint of concern on his face of how Kazuki would react. Kazuki sighed.
"I think you're looking too far into things. If he were honestly going for some stupid dare like that, he'd have been a lot nicer to me lately… than… normal…" His words trailed off a little, and he recalled his comment to Ban only recently.
'You're acting awfully nice lately…'
He grimaced. Nicer, yes, but not nice, really. After all, they'd been arguing a lot, and only yesterday had they really made it through the day without raising their voices.
'No. Instead I let him kiss me again, and invited him over for dinner.'
Kazuki's expressions were changing from confused to angry to hurt and back again so quickly that Shido worried that maybe he was too late at first. "Kazuki…"
"I don't think there's anything to worry about, Shido. Ban-kun and I… just because we're getting along better now doesn't mean he's trying to sleep with me."
"…You say that, but you don't say that you wouldn't even if he tried?"
"That's not the point -- …I haven't had sex with Ban-kun. Nor will I." It felt untrue when he said it, and he could feel his cheeks darkening. Okay, so maybe he'd thought about it… Not a lot, really, only briefly and only recently, and honestly he couldn't say what he would do if Ban tried. The nagging feeling that something was wrong before now only increased. What if Ban really was only trying to get close to him for some stupid dare just to prove himself in an idiot's-bet with Shido? It hurt to think about, and while he didn't want to believe it, the logical part of his brain refused to let him disregard the possibility so easily.
He became painfully aware of Shido's scrutinizing stare as he started for the bedroom door again. "Don't fall for him, Kaz. Not him. You know better. He's dangerous and an bastard, you could do so much better." Shido trailed after him.
"Please stop that, you're acting as though I'm in love with him," Kazuki muttered. He retrieved his keys and wallet, slipped into his shoes and pulled on a jacket.
Shido went still. "…Are you?"
"No!" Sighing, he crossed his arms over his chest. "No, I'm not," he told Shido honestly. "I… I'm growing fond of him, I suppose. But please, we've only just started getting along. I appreciate you telling me, but I can take care of myself."
"Growing fond of, and trusting him. Both of which are dangerous things for both your physical and mental health," Shido pointed out.
"Thank you, Doctor Shido," Kazuki replied blandly. He opened up the door. "Please lock up when you leave if you're staying for awhile. I really do appreciate the concern. But if you'll excuse me, I have things to get done today."
"Hopefully not Midou."
"…Goodbye, Shido."
